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Ready to turn the heel on LD‘s sock - I’ll do that before I leave for the city shopping extravaganza. Dithering over the scarf pattern too - I suppose I’ll just knit to the widest point and make my decision about altering it then. It’s just too difficult for me to know for sure if it’s going to look balanced or cramped.

It’s also difficult for me to work with a yarn that, no matter how delicious it feels - is basically a color I find uninspiring. It’s not ugly - mind you - it’s lovely for a blonde, which BD once was. It’s taupe. What can I say. No warmth in it. No snugly coziness. I’ve had this yarn for years and never used it because it just doesn’t ignite the sensual response I’m looking for in my pleasure experiences. The joke is it would look really good on BD - just like navy blue. But at least blue is a color - albeit impossible to see in my dimly lit, heavily porched house. Hmmm. Well. We shall all know tomorrow - what will happen to the scarf.

Reading some of my favorite blogs has me thinking about Christmas cooking - and cooking in general. The recipe I sent Annie was one of my own devising - grew out of spaghetti sauce - but, like lots of home cooking recipes, probably developed one evening when I didn’t have any spaghetti but did have macaroni. It’s LD‘s favorite recipe - the first one he asked for when he moved into his own apartment. It’s also something I consider easy to cook - though I suppose frozen TV dinners are the only really easy recipes and they require a microwave - which I don’t have. There is also a rotary dial phone in the kitchen, but the wood cookstove was sent to the cabin years ago. This is a little house in the big woods.

Usually in December I go into cookie gear. This year I’m trying to avoid that. I may not completely succeed - but I’m sort of hoping LD will do the honors. He said he thought he might and truth to tell - I just don’t want the house full of festive fare. I’ve been 6 months on WW and am still pretty new at it all - not so much dieting, as living without all the junk food. Use to be that December mostly meant 31 days of a low grade upset stomach topped by a blissfully happy mouth. I'm just not in the mood for that this year.

No doubt about it - I was born to respond to advertising images. Cover of Southern Living books? You betcha - mouth watering, nostrils flaring - I can hear the clink of glasses at the party and feel the sensuous cling of stretch velvet as I toss my hair back and throw out some witty comment, languidly cradling my champagne glass, flirting outrageously with my companion. Those glorious cut-out cookies with royal frosting decorations? Uh Huh - and the little taffeta flounced children gathered ‘round me in my colonial repro kitchen, their eyes sparkling with wonder at the shine of the dragees we use to decorate the tree shaped sugar confections?

‘Course, we all know the stretch velvet shows all the bulges and the only thing I’ve tossed is the champagne, down the front of my blouse - and the kids are whining and the royal icing makes the air so full of sugar your teeth grow fur.

But those images!!! How they set us up for expectations that - well - it would be fun if they could be fulfilled - but I suspect that only happens in movies from the ‘40’s. And when I contemplate heading off to the kitchen and digging out the bowls and pans - my stomach sort of clutches. Actually - in years past it has sort of cramped and twisted most of December. Funny - I’ve noticed this year that my stomach has cramped up on me even just looking at the holiday magazines. Well - it is all a journey - this weight loss thing - and I guess I’ll just let it happen as it will.

Anyway - the cooking will occur - but not the fortylevendyhundred cookies - and we will have the party, but in my house, it’s the sort where pillows are tossed on the floor and teenagers lounge on the staircase and wee ones will play with the magical toys in William’s Room. Old guys still linger around the food table, but BD will cook the ham and friends will bring potluck type dishes. And so help me - every leftover is going home with LD.

It’s off to the city for me now - or at least, in about an hour or so - and I must make a shopping list.